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Robbers, Gerhard --- "Law, religion and belief in Germany" [2012] ELECD 1283; in Cumper, Peter; Lewis, Tom (eds), "Religion, Rights and Secular Society" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) 58

Book Title: Religion, Rights and Secular Society

Editor(s): Cumper, Peter; Lewis, Tom

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849803670

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Law, religion and belief in Germany

Author(s): Robbers, Gerhard

Number of pages: 18

Abstract/Description:

The German Federal Constitution starts with the words: ‘Conscious of their responsibility before God and man, inspired by the determination to promote world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe, the German people, in the exercise of their constituent power, have adopted this Basic Law.’ This invocatio dei in the preamble of the Constitution makes reference to the idea of God; it is not an advocatio dei, which would directly place the Constitution under the will of God, as is the case with many other countries’ constitutions such as those of Ireland and Greece. The preamble does not restrict its reference to the Christian idea of God. It would have been inconceivable that in 1949, after the murder of the Jews by the Germans and in the attempt to reconnect Germany with its pre- Nazi and anti-Nazi good traditions, the new German constitution should have excluded the Jewish idea of God. It is generally understood that the preamble of the Basic Law does not refer to any particular religious vision of God (be it the Christian, Jewish or Muslim one), or any other specific concept of God.